We are taking a break from our home school this week. We do plan to continue through the summer, but this week I am sending my 2 girls to Vacation Bible School. It's not actually the one at my own church (which is in late July), but at the church across the street from ours. I did feel a little guilty at first, sending them to another church and taking advantage of their workers and supplies, but I've been hearing more and more about other people doing the same thing. I figured it's a good chance for my girls to socialize with some new people (our church only has one other girl in the same grade as my oldest). Plus, to help finalize my decision, it turned out that my husband was going on a business trip this week to Japan! So I figured I could use the help.
It's been nice, though short (tomorrow's the last day, and 3 hours a day goes by really fast!). The girls have been loving it. My youngest girl is just barely old enough for it, at 3 years old. My son isn't old enough this year, so I've still had him with me full-time, but he is so much more manageable without the girls around. In any case, it has allowed me to go to the grocery store this week without dragging all 3 kids along.
It's funny, though - all 3 kids have been asking me this week when we're going to do school again. They may complain (at least, the oldest does) when we're doing it, but she misses it now. In fact, this evening, she dragged her sister to the playroom with her to have their own school. I could hear her making her little sister count to 100, do an alphabet worksheet (for the letter "U"), and sing songs for music time. It actually was very sweet. It makes up a little bit for all the hair-pulling they've put me through this week without Daddy home.
Home school, Vacation Bible School, play school - my kids have "school" on the brain!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Do I Really Need to Teach Latin?
Choosing curriculum can be so difficult. There are so many choices, and while a few I can mark off fairly quickly as being not for us, many are ones that I could see would be useful, effective, wonderful, etc. How do you really choose? And what if you keep going back and forth between several choices?
They all sound good when you read about them. The companies make their products sound so good. They sometimes even say that using their products is the only way your child will become an intelligent, scholarly, logical, compassionate, productive, Godly, intellectual, and/or promising member of society. And reading other people's reviews only tells you so much. Their experience may not be your experience, since their children are not your children. And their teaching abilities are not the same as your own teaching abilities and/or inclinations.
How do I make the right choice, and what if I'm wrong? Will I mess up my children forever? Public school isn't perfect, obviously, and no single (or even combination) homeschool curriculum is either. I have to keep telling myself that. I didn't have a perfect education (probably far from it, given that I attended 8 different public school systems all over the country and abroad), and I still ended up fairly scholarly, logical, intelligent, compassionate, etc. At least, I think so. Even if I make a few mistakes teaching my children, they'll probably be able to overcome any shortcomings, given a decent enough base. (Teaching character is probably more important than any other subject - determination, hard work, love of learning, etc.) They'll learn even more once they pass the age of 18. I am, after all. I am realizing how much I didn't learn myself in my first 13 years of school, now that I am researching what to teach my own children. Some are things I learned later, in college and in life, while others are things that I want to make sure to learn with my children this time around!
What about Latin, for example? "You must study Latin to understand logic and even English grammar," some people say. Well, I never studied Latin, and I think I'm fairly logical and grammatical. I spent many years writing computer software and programming robots, and that requires quite a bit of logic.
In fact, now that I think about it, maybe computer programming should be the new Latin. Studying computer science may be just as effective as Latin in producing logical adults. And it's probably quite a bit more useful, too.
Anyway, I think the only way to really know what curriculum you should choose is to try out different things. It might cost a bit more that way, but you can try and resell the ones that didn't work out, and it might be the only way to really know what you need.
Your children's learning styles may be useful to know, but not crucial. They can pretty much learn enough from any style, though they may not like it as much. They're not going to love everything about every subject, no matter what you choose. It's school, after all. You have to learn some things you don't like, no matter what.
I'm beginning to understand that the teacher may be the most important part. If you don't have a good teacher, the best material isn't going to help too much. Some kids really can learn some subjects all by themselves, but probably not every subject, and the younger they are, the more help they need in every subject. So you need to pick curriculum that you can teach with - one that has whatever helps you need, and is in a style that you can relate to and enjoy using, because not only is it true that "if Momma's not happy, nobody's happy," it's also true that "if the teacher's not happy, nobody's happy!"
They all sound good when you read about them. The companies make their products sound so good. They sometimes even say that using their products is the only way your child will become an intelligent, scholarly, logical, compassionate, productive, Godly, intellectual, and/or promising member of society. And reading other people's reviews only tells you so much. Their experience may not be your experience, since their children are not your children. And their teaching abilities are not the same as your own teaching abilities and/or inclinations.
How do I make the right choice, and what if I'm wrong? Will I mess up my children forever? Public school isn't perfect, obviously, and no single (or even combination) homeschool curriculum is either. I have to keep telling myself that. I didn't have a perfect education (probably far from it, given that I attended 8 different public school systems all over the country and abroad), and I still ended up fairly scholarly, logical, intelligent, compassionate, etc. At least, I think so. Even if I make a few mistakes teaching my children, they'll probably be able to overcome any shortcomings, given a decent enough base. (Teaching character is probably more important than any other subject - determination, hard work, love of learning, etc.) They'll learn even more once they pass the age of 18. I am, after all. I am realizing how much I didn't learn myself in my first 13 years of school, now that I am researching what to teach my own children. Some are things I learned later, in college and in life, while others are things that I want to make sure to learn with my children this time around!
What about Latin, for example? "You must study Latin to understand logic and even English grammar," some people say. Well, I never studied Latin, and I think I'm fairly logical and grammatical. I spent many years writing computer software and programming robots, and that requires quite a bit of logic.
In fact, now that I think about it, maybe computer programming should be the new Latin. Studying computer science may be just as effective as Latin in producing logical adults. And it's probably quite a bit more useful, too.
Anyway, I think the only way to really know what curriculum you should choose is to try out different things. It might cost a bit more that way, but you can try and resell the ones that didn't work out, and it might be the only way to really know what you need.
Your children's learning styles may be useful to know, but not crucial. They can pretty much learn enough from any style, though they may not like it as much. They're not going to love everything about every subject, no matter what you choose. It's school, after all. You have to learn some things you don't like, no matter what.
I'm beginning to understand that the teacher may be the most important part. If you don't have a good teacher, the best material isn't going to help too much. Some kids really can learn some subjects all by themselves, but probably not every subject, and the younger they are, the more help they need in every subject. So you need to pick curriculum that you can teach with - one that has whatever helps you need, and is in a style that you can relate to and enjoy using, because not only is it true that "if Momma's not happy, nobody's happy," it's also true that "if the teacher's not happy, nobody's happy!"
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Intro to Science
We are currently on week 3 of our new science course: Intro to Science, from ElementalScience. All 3 kids have been enjoying it so far, though I don't think my 2-year-old really understands much other than he gets to see some neat things and roam around outside with Mommy once a week. My 3-year-old may understand a bit more, but it's hard to tell how much "science" she's getting out of it. However, my 5-year-old (almost 6) has been repeating some of what she's learned to Daddy in the evenings, and sometimes bringing up related topics with me a week or so later. Science is definitely one subject she never complains about doing!
We did solids/liquids the first week, with an experiment to melt crayon pieces into crayon "cakes" in a muffin tin. We'd done that before about a year or so ago, but they all loved seeing it again. We also searched for and found some pine trees oozing rosin. Last week was solutions & dilutions, and we made Koolaid of varying strengths (tasted nasty to me), painted with diluted paint, and made mud with varying ratios of water to dirt (that was the outside part). This week is density, and so far we've experimented with oil floating on water, and testing an assortment of objects to see if they will float on oil, water, or molasses, or not at all. The nature walk this week will be finding more objects to test how well they float. These first 6 weeks are one unit all about chemistry, but then we'll go into 5 more units, covering physics, geology, meteorology, botany, and zoology.
Looking ahead to week #23, which is on tornadoes, I'm hoping our nature walk doesn't get too wild that week....
We started out using the 2-day-a-week schedule, but this week, I'm trying out the 5-day-a-week schedule. It makes each session shorter and seems to be working better for us. Probably because my kids still have very short attention spans. It spreads out the experiments too, so we're not get too messy too many times in one day. So I think we will stick with that, and probably spread out our history (study of the states) a bit more too, and do less each day, but more days a week. As I gain a little more experience homeschooling, I'm beginning to modify things a bit more, and not be so particular about having a strict schedule. That seems to be a necessity with 2 preschoolers roaming around.
Next week we're taking a break from school. My husband will be on a business trip out of the country, and I'm sending the girls to Vacation Bible School. I figured that might help me cope a bit better during my week of "single" parenting. We'll see how it goes!
We did solids/liquids the first week, with an experiment to melt crayon pieces into crayon "cakes" in a muffin tin. We'd done that before about a year or so ago, but they all loved seeing it again. We also searched for and found some pine trees oozing rosin. Last week was solutions & dilutions, and we made Koolaid of varying strengths (tasted nasty to me), painted with diluted paint, and made mud with varying ratios of water to dirt (that was the outside part). This week is density, and so far we've experimented with oil floating on water, and testing an assortment of objects to see if they will float on oil, water, or molasses, or not at all. The nature walk this week will be finding more objects to test how well they float. These first 6 weeks are one unit all about chemistry, but then we'll go into 5 more units, covering physics, geology, meteorology, botany, and zoology.
Looking ahead to week #23, which is on tornadoes, I'm hoping our nature walk doesn't get too wild that week....
We started out using the 2-day-a-week schedule, but this week, I'm trying out the 5-day-a-week schedule. It makes each session shorter and seems to be working better for us. Probably because my kids still have very short attention spans. It spreads out the experiments too, so we're not get too messy too many times in one day. So I think we will stick with that, and probably spread out our history (study of the states) a bit more too, and do less each day, but more days a week. As I gain a little more experience homeschooling, I'm beginning to modify things a bit more, and not be so particular about having a strict schedule. That seems to be a necessity with 2 preschoolers roaming around.
Next week we're taking a break from school. My husband will be on a business trip out of the country, and I'm sending the girls to Vacation Bible School. I figured that might help me cope a bit better during my week of "single" parenting. We'll see how it goes!
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